"Why?" I asked, in some surprise. "I thought everything was going to be as simple as possible."

"Well, father says now that he thinks we _must_ have a rich wedding, and ask all our friends amongst the lower cla.s.ses. I should like them to come, of course, because a lot of them are real friends; but I do hate the idea of a regular rich wedding."

"Why does your father think we ought to have one?" I asked. "He seemed to be pleased that I wasn't a man like Eppstein, and that you were marrying into your own cla.s.s."

"Yes, but he says there will be such a lot of talk if we only have our poor friends. People are always saying that he isn't really in sympathy with the rich at all. Of course it isn't true, but if we had a rich wedding, and invited all the rich people and gave them presents, it would show that he does think more of them than just of pleasing our poor relations."

"Should we have to give them presents--expensive ones?"

"Yes. They are awfully good. Lots of the women in mother's district have promised to take jewels. They are quite excited about my marriage, and would like to see me settled as poorly provided for as possible. Perhaps it wouldn't be fair to disappoint them. But I do hate it so."

"Well, so do I," I said. "And I should hate to give away a lot of presents to people who had never done me any harm."

"Dear old boy!" she said affectionately. "Mother rather hates the idea of it too. But she feels, perhaps, that we _ought_ to think of our rich friends at a time like this."

"Miriam," I said boldly, "we can't face it. Let us go away together and get married quietly when we get to England."

The idea seemed to strike her as something rather dreadful and rather pleasing at the same time. She blushed, but her eyes were bright.

"Oh, we couldn't," she said.

"Yes, we could. Let us go away in a week's time, before all the fuss begins, and escape it."

"It really would be rather fun!" She was half joking, half in earnest, but, at any rate, she had admitted the idea into her mind, and gradually as I pressed her, making light of all difficulties, she began to waver towards acquiescence, in earnest. What her mother would think was the chief obstacle.

"I am sure she would be just as relieved as we should at escaping all the bother," I said. "You could leave her a letter."

"I could come back and see her after we were married."

"Yes, of course. We would come back to Upsidonia whenever we wanted some more--I mean whenever you wanted to. Oh, Miriam, say yes!"

She did not say yes at once, but she did a little later. She had a great sense of adventure, and became even excited at the prospect, when she had once consented to it. We decided to go away together very early in the morning in a week's time.

FOOTNOTES:

[33] See page 65.

CHAPTER XXVI

As long as I remained in Miriam's garden, I was safe from interruption.

If the police had been waiting to arrest me for a crime, they could not have got at me, or even summoned me from outside, but must have waited until I chose to appear.

But when we had made our plans together, I thought I had better go and see if they had called again, and, if they had, give them my finger-prints and get it over.

When Miriam and I left her garden and shut the gate behind us, the first thing we saw was the ragged figure of Lord Potter, who was shuffling about with his shoulders hunched up and his hands in his pockets, looking at the flower-beds. Hovering about at some little distance from him was Mollie, who made excited signs in our direction when she saw us.

Lord Potter saw us at the same time, and came across the lawn with a very disagreeable expression on his dirty face. "The police are waiting for you up at the house, sir," he said. "It is just like you to take refuge in a lady's garden. But if you think you are going to escape me this time you are much mistaken. Off with you at once! I am not in a mood to be kept waiting any longer."

He held out his hand towards the house with a commanding gesture, and I was just about to reply to him, not altogether pacifically, when Miriam's clear young voice broke in.

"Mollie!" she called, and when Mollie came to her, she said: "Run at once and fetch Mr. Hobbs and Sir Herbert. Tell them that there is someone in the garden who has no right to be here."

Mollie ran off, and Lord Potter's face darkened. "Do you know who I am, Miss Perry?" he asked haughtily. "But of course you do. What is the meaning of this strange behaviour?"

Miriam turned her shoulder to him, and taking my arm led me towards the house.

Lord Potter shuffled after us, and said angrily: "Answer me, please!

What do you mean by treating me in this way?"

He was on the other side of Miriam, and his unsavoury presence was nearer to her than I cared for. I let go of her arm, and pushed in between them.

"Keep your distance," I said, and trod by mistake--at least--well, trod will do--on his toe.

My boots were new and strong, and his were in the last stages of consumption. With a cry of rage and agony, he took the damaged foot in his hand, and hopped about on the other, while he vented on me a flood of violent abuse.

At that moment Mr. Hobbs and Sir Herbert appeared on the scene. Miriam stopped and said: "My father has refused to have this man in the house, and we have just found him walking about in the garden. Will you please put him outside the gate?"

Lord Potter faced them. "If you dare lay a finger on me," he began----

But Mr. Hobbs, who thought there was n.o.body in the world like Miriam, and would have turned an emperor out of the garden if she had asked him, laid a large hand on his shoulder, and said: "I don't know who you are, but you get out of my garden."

Sir Herbert laid his hand on the other shoulder, and between them they shifted Lord Potter towards the drive, faster than was altogether convenient to him.

He was so taken aback by this treatment that at first he could only expostulate violently. But as it continued he began to resist, and then Sir Herbert, who was an athletic young man, took him by the collar with one hand and the seat of his trousers with the other, and ran him forcibly across the lawn.

The sight was so comic that I burst out laughing. Mollie did the same, jumping and clapping her hands with delight, and Miriam was not long in following suit. I was delighted to think that Lord Potter could not possibly help hearing us. The crowning point of the scene was when Tom, who had a half-holiday that afternoon, ran out of the house with a hand camera, and succeeded in taking two snapshots of the progression before it ended at the gate.

Sir Herbert came back grinning, and said: "I have owed his lordship one for a long time. When I was a boy at school, he got me a swishing for pea-shooting at him."

As for Lord Potter, he went off down the Culbut Road, without once turning back; and if ever a man looked like making mischief, he did.

The affair with the police was soon over. I put on a dignified air, and did all that they asked me to do without making any difficulty about it.

They were actually apologetic before they left, and I was not surprised when they told me that they had already found and arrested the man who had committed the burglary, and that it was only because Lord Potter had insisted that they had worried me over the matter at all. They had been quite sure all along that I could have had nothing to do with it.

"Lord Potter knew that as well as you did," I said. "I rather wonder--if I may be permitted to say so--that you should have lent yourselves to pay off his scores."

They looked a little foolish at that, and one of them said: "We shall not act on his instructions again. Lord Potter is, no doubt, a very important personage, but he must not think that he can make use of our service for his private ends."

"I have just seen him doing the frog's march out of the garden," I said, "and I expect when you get back you will find him there, wanting to have some arrests made for a.s.sault. He looked like that, as far as I could judge from his back. You might tell him that photographs were taken of him, in a position not calculated to add l.u.s.tre to his name, if they came to be published. It might be worth his while not to take any further steps."

The policemen laughed and went away. Whether they gave Lord Potter the hint or not, neither Mr. Hobbs nor Sir Herbert heard anything further of their treatment of him.

Later in the afternoon I called on Herman Eppstein at his office, and arranged for the transfer of the Mount Lebanon shares. He looked grave when I told him what a large block of them I had taken over, and said that there had been a distinct upward movement in Mount Lebanons during the last few days.

"I'm afraid you have bought at a very bad time," he said. "I wish you had consulted me first. I could 'ave put you on to a better spec than that. You may get badly 'it. And whatever made you take all your eggs out of one basket? Why, you'll make a fortune if these 'ere shares do go up, and what'll the family say to that, eh?"